Australia is a country of diverse communities and environments. At any time of the year, it is possible to have simultaneous bushfires raging in the west, widespread flooding in the east and tropical cyclones threatening landfall in the north. These natural disasters have a significant impact on Australia’s communities, economy and the environment. Although we cannot prevent natural disasters, having a better understanding of the exposure to these events can inform more effective prevention, preparedness, response and recovery (PPRR) decision-making across all levels of government. Exposure refers to the elements at risk from or natural and man-made hazard events. Knowing who and what is at risk is imperative for the role of Emergency Management Australia (EMA), within the Attorney General’s Department, to administer the Australian Government's financial assistance for response and recovery during major natural hazard events. Lacking spatial expertise, EMA commissioned Geoscience Australia (GA) to enhance their event reporting with improved situational awareness mapping. The aim was to support their decision-making process with innovative, timely and efficient access to fundamental nationally-consistent spatial data and disaster event information. GA addressed this requirement by designing an Exposure Report – a streamlined yet detailed snapshot of exposure information for any area of interest across Australia. The Exposure Report is generated by consolidating a range of national fundamental datasets to extract relevant attributes and present the information in a timely, concise and easily accessible report. The automated process quickly aggregates information for a variety of standard administrative boundaries or hazard-specific footprints. It includes important exposure information such as estimated population and demographic indicators, buildings, business and infrastructure asset counts, reconstruction costs, and identifies agricultural areas, commodities and their value. The customised report provides the information EMA requires in a way that can be readily accessed and interpreted to make timely and informed emergency management decisions. The request and delivery of the report are also integrated into EMA’s incident management system to simplify the coordination, access and accountability between government departments. GA has enhanced the Australian Government’s ability to prioritise response and recovery assistance by improving the access to detailed exposure information in a timely manner. EMA now has ready access to consistent baseline exposure information for any area across Australia, leading to not only better-informed response and recovery but also to planning, preparedness and mitigation initiatives to build more resilient communities.

<p>Bushfires and Natural Hazards are features of the Australian climate and landscape. These hazards continue to pose threat and profound personal, social, economic and environmental impacts. In Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), nationally consistent and comprehensive exposure information is critical to provide situational awareness and a fundamental baseline of what may be impacted for decision makers at all levels of governance. <p>Extensive consultation with stakeholders and a review of international exposure information practices has informed the compilation of information requirements for each phase of DRR. The Natural Hazards Exposure Information Framework is a definition of the data and attributes required for all levels of DRR governance in governments, insurance sector and researchers. The report reviewed current information provision systems in Australia, identified gaps and proposed recommendations to enable the creation of more comprehensive exposure information in the future. The framework is fundamentally based on the location of features in the physical environment and their characteristics including key social and economic attributes, e.g. insurance status, buildings, infrastructure (transport, energy, communications and water), people, businesses, manufacturing industries, hazardous substances, waste management and primary industries. Importantly, the framework also addresses the ‘fit for purpose’ question by describing guidelines for data custodians to establish and maintain data provenance to enable the derivation of meaningful data reliability measures for end users. <p>The Natural Hazards Exposure Information Framework provides guidance to build and advance exposure information systems in Australia. This will enable data custodians to prioritise and invest in data, processing and delivery to improve the efficiencies of both tactical and strategic disaster management. Improved nationally consistent and comprehensive exposure information will enable users to assess risk and provide informed advice, such as cost-benefit analysis of mitigation proposals or disaster recovery arrangements. This framework will be a fundamental reference in developing similar systems internationally such as Global Exposure Database for all hazards. The framework also aids in capacity building for developing nations to improve their DRR practices.

<div>National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) Residential Dwelling Density is a set of four raster layers representing the density of residential dwellings across Australia at different scales and resolutions. A dwelling is defined as self-contained suites of rooms including cooking and bathing facilities and intended for long-term residential use. Such dwelling units include houses-detached buildings used for long-term residential purposes-and other dwellings including flats. NEXIS collates the best publicly-available information, statistics, spatial and survey data into comprehensive and nationally-consistent exposure information datasets. Where data is limited, models are used to apply statistics based on similar areas. Exposure Information products are created at the national, state or local level to understand the elements at risk during an event or as a key input for analysis in risk assessments. NEXIS products are not intended for operational purposes at the building or individual feature level. Its strength is to provide consistent aggregated exposure information for individual event footprints or at standard community, local, state and national geographies such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Statistical Areas (SA) or Local Government Areas (LGA). NEXIS Building exposure information consists of Residential, Commercial and Industrial buildings. This information can be used to understand the type, use, age and structural characteristics such as number of storeys, roof type and wall type of the building stock nationally. Building exposure information can also be used to estimate population attributes such as the number of occupants, household income and other demographic indicators, as well as economic impacts based on building construction and replacement costs. The NEXIS Residential Dwelling Density is a national grid-based representation derived from the number and distribution of dwellings produced from the NEXIS residential buildings data. </div><div><br></div><div>Dwelling density is available as a web service displaying the aggregate number of dwellings, at four different raster scales and resolutions, to show the distribution and density of residential dwellings across Australia. Resolutions include 100m, 500m, 1km and 2km rasters.</div><div><br></div><div>Resolutions:</div><div>1. Number of residential dwellings per 100sqm. Visible at zoom scales 1:250,000 minimum with no maximum. </div><div>2. Number of residential dwellings per 500sqm. Visible at zoom scales 1:700,000 minimum with 1:250,001 maximum.</div><div>3. Number of residential dwellings per 1km square. Visible at zoom scales 1:3,000,000 minimum with 1:700,001 maximum. </div><div>4. Number of residential dwellings per 2km square. Visible at zoom scales with no minimum and 1:3,000,001 maximum</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>This product is based on NEXIS version 15 (2024) data.</div><div><br></div>

This product is an aggregation of the Australian Exposure Information Platform (AEIP) by the Local Government Area (LGA), 2020 LGA boundaries. The aggregated information is from version 6 of the Australian Exposure Information Platform. In 2002 Geoscience Australia (GA) embarked on the development of the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) project in response to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reform commitment on Australian’s ability to manage natural disasters and other emergencies. Public access to NEXIS has been limited to products based on Local Government Areas or ABS Statistical Areas. In 2013, the Bushfire and Natural Hazard Cooperative Research Centre, Geoscience Australia led a three year research project in collaboration with University of Melbourne and the University of Canberra, to document a comprehensive Natural Hazard Exposure Information Framework. The objective was to fully describe and categorise exposure information elements in a consistent framework to be used as a reference for developing future exposure information systems. In 2018, in partnership with the Bushfire & Natural Hazard CRC, Geoscience Australia has made available the Australian Exposure Information Platform (AEIP). The aim for AEIP was to make nationally consistent exposure information, directly accessible to key stakeholders involved in emergency management situation awareness, risk assessments, impact analysis research, and disaster management. The Platform combines the extensive work from NEXIS and the comprehensive ‘Natural Hazard Exposure Information Framework’, by providing user’s direct access to national Exposure Information. It includes 'elements' on building, businesses and people; public facilities and infrastructure assets; agricultural commodities, and environmental holdings within Australia. Exposure Reports provides a detailed statistical summary of the 'elements', within a user defined area of interest. The AEIP exposure information provides a summary of building and agricultural aggregated information. For more detailed building information, see NEXIS Building Exposure.

This product is an aggregation of the Australian Exposure Information Platform (AEIP) by the Statistical Areas Level 1 (SA1), 2016 SA1 boundaries. The aggregated information is from version 6 of the Australian Exposure Information Platform. In 2002 Geoscience Australia (GA) embarked on the development of the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) project in response to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reform commitment on Australian’s ability to manage natural disasters and other emergencies. Public access to NEXIS has been limited to products based on Local Government Areas or ABS Statistical Areas. In 2013, the Bushfire and Natural Hazard Cooperative Research Centre, Geoscience Australia led a three year research project in collaboration with University of Melbourne and the University of Canberra, to document a comprehensive Natural Hazard Exposure Information Framework. The objective was to fully describe and categorise exposure information elements in a consistent framework to be used as a reference for developing future exposure information systems. In 2018, in partnership with the Bushfire & Natural Hazard CRC, Geoscience Australia has made available the Australian Exposure Information Platform (AEIP). The aim for AEIP was to make nationally consistent exposure information, directly accessible to key stakeholders involved in emergency management situation awareness, risk assessments, impact analysis research, and disaster management. The Platform combines the extensive work from NEXIS and the comprehensive ‘Natural Hazard Exposure Information Framework’, by providing user’s direct access to national Exposure Information. It includes 'elements' on building, businesses and people; public facilities and infrastructure assets; agricultural commodities, and environmental holdings within Australia. Exposure Reports provides a detailed statistical summary of the 'elements', within a user defined area of interest. The AEIP exposure information provides a summary of building and agricultural aggregated information. For more detailed building information, see NEXIS Building Exposure linked records.

This dynamic dataset is composed of data layers representing the potential damage arising from the impacts of Tropical Cyclone (TC) related winds on residential houses. The impacts are determined using information on the forecast track of the TC issued by the Bureau of Meteorology, nationally consistent exposure (residential building) and vulnerability (likely level of damage) information maintained by Geoscience Australia. The tracks are based on the content of Technical Bulletins issued by the Bureau of Meteorology’s Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres every 6 hours for active TCs in the Australian region. As such, information is generated intermittently, depending on the occurrence of TCs. The tracks are a forecast only, so do not include past position information of the TC. Forecasts may extend up to 120 hours (5 days) ahead of the forecast time. A wind field around each track is simulated using Geoscience Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Risk Model (TCRM, https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/77484). This provides an estimate of the maximum gust wind speed over open, flat terrain (e.g. airports). Local effects such as topography and land cover changes are incorporated via site wind multipliers (https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/75299), resulting in a 0.2-second, 10-m above ground level wind speed, with a spatial resolution of approximately 30 metres. The impacts are calculated using Geoscience Australia’s HazImp code (https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/110501), which utilises the National Exposure Information System building data and a suite of wind vulnerability curves to determine the level of damage sustained by individual buildings (a damage index). The damage index values are aggregated to Australian Bureau of Statistics Statistical Area Level 1 regions, and can be assigned a qualitative damage description based on the mean damage index.

<div>Intertidal environments contain many important ecological habitats such as sandy beaches, tidal flats, rocky shores, and reefs. These environments also provide many valuable benefits such as storm surge protection, carbon storage, and natural resources.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Intertidal zones are being increasingly faced with threats including coastal erosion, land reclamation (e.g. port construction), and sea level rise. These regions are often highly dynamic, and accurate, up-to-date elevation data describing the changing topography and extent of these environments is needed. However, this data is expensive and challenging to map across the entire intertidal zone of a continent the size of Australia. &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The intertidal zone also forms a critical habitat and foraging ground for migratory shore birds and other species. An improved characterisation of the exposure patterns of these dynamic environments is important to support conservation efforts and to gain a better understanding of migratory species pathways. &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The <strong>DEA Intertidal </strong>product suite (https://knowledge.dea.ga.gov.au/data/product/dea-intertidal) provides annual continental -scale elevation and exposure products for Australia’s intertidal zone, mapped at a 10m resolution, from Digital Earth Australia’s archive of open-source Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite data. These intertidal products enable users to better monitor and understand some of the most dynamic regions of Australia’s coastlines.</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Applications</strong></div><div><br></div><div> - Integration with existing topographic and bathymetric data to seamlessly map the elevation of the coastal zone.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div> - Providing baseline elevation data for predicting the impact of coastal hazards such as storm surges, tsunami inundation, or future sea-level rise.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div> - Investigating coastal erosion and sediment transport processes.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div> - Supporting habitat mapping and modelling for coastal ecosystems extending across the terrestrial to marine boundary.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div> - Characterisation of the spatio-temporal exposure patterns of the intertidal zone to support migratory species studies and applications.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

In August 2002 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reviewed natural disaster relief and mitigation arrangements for Australia (COAG, 2003). In response to the recommendation to “develop and implement a five-year national program of systematic and rigorous disaster risk assessments”, Geoscience Australia (GA) is undertaking a series of national risk assessments for a range of natural hazards. Fundamental to any risk assessment is an understanding of the exposure including the number and type of buildings, businesses, infrastructure and people exposed to the hazard of interest. Presently there is no nationally consistent exposure database in existence for risk assessment purposes. It is important to emphasise that understanding the risks associated with various hazards requires more detailed information than the population and number of structures at a census district level. The understanding of building type, construction (roof and wall) type, building age, number of storeys, business type and replacement value is critical to understanding the potential impact on Australian communities from various hazards. The National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) is aimed at providing nationally consistent and best available exposure information at the building level. It requires detailed spatial analysis and integration of available demographic, structural and statistical data. Fundamentally, this system is developed from several national spatial datasets as a generic approach with several assumptions made to derive meaningful information. NEXIS underpins scenarios and risk assessments for various hazards. Included are earthquakes, cyclones, severe synoptic wind, tsunami, flood and technogenic critical infrastructure failure. It will be integrated with early warning and alert systems to provide real time assessment of damage or forecast the impact for any plausible hazards. This system is intended to provide a relative assessment of exposure from multiple hazards and provide the geographic distribution of exposure for regional planning. This will be at an aggregated census district level now and at a mesh block level in the future. The system is scoped to capture the residential, business (commercial and industrial), and ancillary (educational, government, community, religious, etc.) infrastructure. Currently the NEXIS architecture is finalised and the system provides residential exposure information. The prototype for business exposure is in progress. The system aims to capture ancillary buildings, infrastructure and various critical infrastructure sector exposures in future. More specific building and socio-economic information will be incorporated as new datasets or sources of information become available. The NEXIS will be able to provide the exposure information for the impact analysis for a region. This database will not support a site specific assessment involving one or two buildings and need more specific information about the particular exposure to estimate the risk at micro level. More detailed information suitable for such analysis will be maintained in reference databases.

A publicly available AGOL Dashboard that periodically updates to show the status of requests made to the Australian Exposure Information Platform (AEIP), categorised as Running, Queued and Completed (www.aeip.ga.gov.au)

Geoscience Australia (GA), in partnership with the Bushfire & Natural Hazard CRC, has made available the Australian Exposure Information Platform (AEIP), for users to access nationally consistent exposure information.